Outback Sport RallyCross

The more I dig, the more I find. My objective has 100% changed to slowing the rust and providing structural support so that the strut towers outlive whatever else kills the car. Based on my experience, I think I could have blissfully ignored the situation for a few years or more without any catastrophic failures.

With that in mind, I dug out all of the loose stuff and hit it with Rustoleum Rust Reformer. I'll add patches to reinforce, and call it good. If I were to do a good job at this, I can't see any way that it doesn't scope creep into "fixing" all of the rust in the quarters, rockers, etc. This is not the car for that level of effort. 
 

First round of CAD complete.

Templates are all cut and the first two patches are welded in. The best part about my welding is that nobody will be able to see it. I use my welder just infrequently enough to forget everything I learned the time before, and it shows. I started with what I thought would be the easier patches. They had to cover compound curves and my idea to tack one side and work them in place with a hammer didn't go as easily as I'd hoped. There was more "spring" in the metal than I expected. The flip side is that it's hidden so I didn't have to be gentle with the hammer. 

What's that old expression? A grinder and paint make the welder I ain't. Flux core and thin metal is challenging. Given that it's hidden, I skipped the grinder and slathered it in paint. Driver side is done. Passenger side will probably wait for another day. 

After using the Rust Reformer, I removed paint from the surfaces to be welded and coated all of that in upol weld through primer. It isn't restored, but this repair should outlive the car. 
 

I treated myself to this little belt sander with a HF gift card that I got for Christmas. It was  very helpful getting the paint off in a couple of tight spots where the flap disk couldn't reach. 

Criminally bad looking welds aside, I'm happy with the outcome of the passenger side. There was a lot of rust and it took stitching four patches together to address. Fortunately I was able to connect to good metal all the way around. I'm again confident that this will outlive the car. 
 

Wrapped up the strut tower repair today. While I was at it, I patched the gaping hole in the spare tire well. I'm going to continue to ignore the rust in the quarters and rockers for now (and probably forever). 
 

Those welds look fantastic! 🤣
 

Starting to think about 2025 season prep for this fine unit. One thing on the preventative maintenance list is motor mounts. The motor & trans were moving around a bunch last year causing some clunking and such. The question is: OEM quality replacements, the forum favorite "Group N" upgrade, or something racier (poly)? The car is not street driven. Solid mounts are out per SCCA stock class rules. I'm thinking that if I'm going to do motor mounts that I should do the transmission mount and the pitch stop mount. Your thoughts and suggestions are welcomed. TIA!

In reply to Motojunky :

Check the 2025 rules for the new engine and trans mount allowance.

ojannen said:

In reply to Motojunky :

Check the 2025 rules for the new engine and trans mount allowance.

23. Engine and/or transmission mounts and/or devices to control motion of the engine and or transmission (pitch stop, dog bone, bobble strut, etc.) may be replaced with non-metallic mounts or supplemented with non-metallic inserts. All of the original mounting locations must be used and cannot be modified. Hardware may be changed as required for proper installation. This does not allow for subframe replacement.

I interpret this as rubber & poly good, all metal (solid) = bad. Am I missing something? 

Thx 

In reply to Motojunky :

You are right.  I was thinking about bmw mounts that look like they are sliced off a plastic cylinder.  Those are legal but not the metal versions.

I had the STi pitch mount, and Group N motor mounts on my old Outback Sport back in the day and on my Outback XT daily now.

Unsurprisingly the OEM engineers did a good job of finding the right mix of NVH and stiffness! The pitch mount made a huge difference on my worn out stock on on the OBS, I recommend the Group N and/or STi parts.  It's been a minute since I researched it, but I do believe there are some differences between Group N (preferred) and STi (closer to OEM).

rallyxPOS13 said:

I had the STi pitch mount, and Group N motor mounts on my old Outback Sport back in the day and on my Outback XT daily now.

Unsurprisingly the OEM engineers did a good job of finding the right mix of NVH and stiffness! The pitch mount made a huge difference on my worn out stock on on the OBS, I recommend the Group N and/or STi parts.  It's been a minute since I researched it, but I do believe there are some differences between Group N (preferred) and STi (closer to OEM).

Thanks. This is the direction that I'd like to go. I don't care so much about NVH since it's not street driven but I don't want to deal with breakage and/or create problems elsewhere. Ideally I'll never touch driveline mounts again. I've been poking around as I've had a spare minute, looking for the easy button. RalliSpec (link below) advertises "STI Group N drivetrain mounts" which leaves me with a lack of clarity. 

https://www.rallispec.com/mou_drv_rst4100.html

EDIT: Did a little more looking around and was able to find several old posts confirming that RalliSpec is selling Group N mounts. Order placed. 

With the first event of the 2025 season about a month away, I figured it was time to get the car ready. I installed the Group N motor and trans mounts this evening. I estimated an hour to do the job. 2.5 hours later, all good. 🤣 It wasn't a terrible job but I sure wish I'd thought to do it while I had the motor out last year. It would have been much easier.  I had to get creative to be able to get enough leverage to remove the rear bolt on each side. Took me a minute to figure out that starting those two bolts was easier from the top side.

The accessible forward bolt in the driver side mount was rounded from some PO. It took some fiddling but I was ultimately able to smash a 1/2" 12 point socket on it (it's a 14mm) and get it out. The threads in the hole were a little bit boogered up but they cleaned up easily with a tap. The only 10mm x 1.25 bolt I had on hand that was close in length was a banjo bolt from a Honda XR front master cylinder. I'll replace it with a proper bolt before I run it in anger. Had the rear bolt been problematic, I'd have been pulling the engine again. 

The Group N motor mounts look the same as the OEM mounts but are  much stiffer. I can twist the old mounts to the stop by hand - I can't move the new ones. I suspect that new OEM ones would have been a big improvement over the worn out and probably original mounts. The trans mount is visibly beefier with a solid chunk of rubber vs. smaller pieces. In any case, I'm fairly certain that the clunk I was hearing at the last event last year was a result of the motor flopping around causing the exhaust to bang into stuff. This should put a stop to that. 
 

Why yes, that is oil all over the bottom of the engine... mixed with mud. It's a Subaru. 
 

I had some time to keep picking away at prepping the car this evening. Changed the oil and installed the STI pitch stop. The OEM one actually looks beefier but the rubber in the big end of the STI fills the space while the OEM leaves a bit of a void. The small end bushing was broken on the old one too. 
 

The front sway bar links are shot. That's also been a source of front end clunk. I'll order replacements and get them installed. With new hardware I'll be able to easily test connected vs. disconnected. They're so sloppy now, they're essentially non existent. 

I also took a minute to look for that exhaust leak. It wasn't tough to spot. I have a terribly cobbled together aftermarket cat-back that I may use. It would be nice to be able to hear the engine better with my helmet on. I dunno - I also don't love loud exhaust. 
 

The car is idling very low - maybe 400-500 RPM. It seems to run fine otherwise. I did a quick check for vacuum leaks, damaged wiring, etc. and came up empty. I gave the throttle body a quick cleaning with no change. No CEL at this point. We'll see what shakes out there. 

Next up transmission and differential fluid change, do something about the exhaust, and then I think we're good to go. 

I've got a somewhat hectic schedule between now and the first RallyCross of the season on 3/23. With that in mind I tried to knock out a few things today. First up was repacking the trailer wheel bearings - something I meant to do all last season. I then moved on to replacing the sway bar end links. For possibly the first time ever, I didn't have to cut or otherwise forcibly remove any of the bolts. That was the first little win of the day. 

I needed to do something about the exhaust. When I bought my driver project, I removed the abomination below. Today I dug it and some other random exhaust parts out to see if I could whip up something that I could live with.

Ultimately I decided that I couldn't come up with anything that I'd have confidence in and patched up the stock exhaust. After getting that sorted I decided to search Marketplace to see what might be available. I should have done that first. Ten minutes from home I scored this cat back exhaust new in the box for small money. 
 

It fits pretty well and should allow me to hear what the engine is doing. It's a little bit silly looking but I can live with it. 
 

I had a few minutes one evening last week and did a more thorough check for vacuum leaks to see if that might be a contributor to the low/rough idle. I wasn't able to find any. I also replaced the fuel filter as a PM item while I was at it. It occurred to me today that I had the battery disconnected for a few hours back when I was patching up the strut towers. The car hasn't been run for more than a few minutes here and there to move it around since then. I'm wondering if the ECM needs to relearn idle settings. I'm gonna take it out for a ride tomorrow to make sure all is well and then load it on the trailer. I'm as ready as I'm going to be. 

My only gripe with the exhaust was that the rear hanger was on the narrow side and smaller in diameter than the OEM. It looked likely to come out of the rubber isolators. I had some 3/8 stainless wire rope clamps that should make it just about impossible to come undone. 

Soon...

In reply to Motojunky :

I have tow rig envy.

Indy - Guy said:

In reply to Motojunky :

I have tow rig envy.

Envy is probably a step or three too far. That said, I do think that vans are overlooked for the 'race support vehicle' role because they aren't "cool." I was always a pickup guy until I bought this in 2018 to take a cross-country trip with the family. I was an almost instant convert. That old Ford has now been to all of the lower 48 states and the simple camping setup is perfect for race weekends. 

Yesterday was the first event of the 2025 season for the Washington, DC Region SCCA RallyCross. After a hectic week of work-related travel the week prior, we showed up at Summit Point Motorsports Park Saturday evening to set up camp. It was another chilly night which limited the socialization. Otherwise all was good. My buddy's big enclosed trailer is a litle bit of overkill but it makes a great shelter for cold-weather campfire (propane heater) conversations. After some basic car prep in the weeks prior, I felt like we were good to go. 

I raced SA (stock all wheel drive) last season in the Susquehanna region and was pretty competitive in that class. I showed up for the last two events in the DC region and met Jim in the SA class who is decidedly faster than me. He's been racing for years and is in a similar car (2001 Subaru 2.5 RS which has maybe 25-30 more HP than mine). That makes him a really good benchmark for me to chase. 

The course was good and interesting. It started out fast and flowing - turns one and two were the stuff of daydreams. After that it got tight and technical with a couple of spots that I never really got quite right. I started out giving Jim 4 seconds per run on the first two runs. I found 3+ seconds on the third run, but he found another second also. The fourth run was similar and then he had a string of three less than ideal runs. I did OK and got within about a second and a half of him - gaining a little bit of false hope. For the rest of the day he put the hammer down and put 2-3 seconds per run on me. I had been chasing a 68 second run all afternoon and just couldn't pull it off. I decided to push really hard on the last run and either run a 68 or throw it away... I did not run a 68 - I gave up 5 seconds on that run alone. :) Ultimately, Jim finished over 14 seconds ahead of me. 

There were timing challenges for much of the day. I hit my first cone of the day on lap 6 or 7 and ended up getting a re-run due to a timing issue. I capitalized on that and had a clean & fast rerun. I hit my only "counted" cone on the last run, trying to be a hero in turn 1. Driving that clean tells me that I was leaving speed on the table for sure. I'm really looking forward to this season. Being on the steep side of the learning curve is my favorite place to be. 

I know that comparing overall times can be a little bit arbitrary but I at least like to look at the other AWD classes to see how I did. Based on the live timing, I finished 2nd in class, 9th overall, and my time would have been good for 5th in MA. Jim's first in class was 4th overall and would have been good for 3rd in MA. That dude is fast. I think yesterday was my most competitive day of driving to date and I'm happy about that. EDIT: After seeing the actual results posted, it looks like they fixed one competitor's time making Jim's overall position 5th, and mine 10th. 

Back to the car: Not having worn out motor mounts seems to help with mid-corner throttle adjustments. I don't seem to be upsetting the chassis as much when I get on the throttle which (maybe?) allowed me to get on the gas a little earlier on corner exits. Hearing the exhaust is nice. I'm sure it doesn't add any power, but it's nice to have audible input for when I can't sneak a look at the tach. Other than that it was the usual. Having not raced anything else, I don't have anything to compare to but the car seems to work OK. I don't think there's anything with the car that is limiting me at this point. I did hear a disconcerting rattling at idle in the afternoon but I think that is heat shields on the exhaust rattling. They're all broken and loose.

I got to use a jack handle to help a competitor "adjust" a skidplate/bumper that got pushed into the left front tire. That's my kind of repair work. My buddy had a tough day in his Chevy Sonic, first de-beading a tire and then blowing a heater hose. He was able to overcome both issues quickly and not miss any runs. It was just enough adversity to make it exciting. All in all, a perfect day of racing. In the spirit of this thread, I highly recommend that you go get yourself a E36 M3box car and go Rallycrossing. It's absurdly fun. 

I always forget to take pics, but here's one from Saturday evening as we took a look at the course. I really like this place.

Video from my freebie cone hit run. No idea what was going on with the camera exposure - I'll have to check settings. 
 

At the last race (Washington DC 3/23) there was a section of course that was pretty rough and needed to be crossed at a good angle. On one run I got out of shape in the preceding turn and wasn't able to take my preferred line. I bottomed out HARD and expected the car to quit running - it didn't. I took a quick look between runs and didn't immediately see any damage.

This afternoon I finally unloaded the car to give it a quick look before this Sunday's race. I was shocked to find the driver side "frame rail" crunched pretty bad. Apparently I came down on something solid (rock?) directly on the tow hook. Ouch. I'll probably take the car to the frame tree to pull it out a bit but it doesn't seem to be causing any problems.

It also broke the mounting tabs off of the top of the radiator. It is temporarily secured with zip ties until I come up with a better solution.  
 

"I think yesterday was my most competitive day of driving to date and I'm happy about that."

I posted this about the event two weeks ago. Yesterday's event was completely opposite. I felt like I drove worse yesterday than maybe ever (relative to experience and my perceived skill level). I just couldn't get any rhythm going and only put one clean run together all day. Every day can't be your best day, I guess. The good thing is, even having my "worst day of RallyCross ever," I still had a great time. 

My group worked first in the morning. Other than a couple of brief showers, the rain had stopped by the time we started racing. The slowly drying course gave us better conditions than the first driving group and they would continue to improve all day. It got really good at the end - enough traction to go fast and zero dust. My first run I sort of forgot to "race." I was driving around, fiddling with my defroster, looking around... kind of like a parade lap. No idea why - I just didn't hit the on switch. I gave up 6 seconds to the eventual class winner on that run. I drove a little better on the 2nd run, but so did he - I gave up another 6 seconds. I gained 4/10ths on the 3rd run, and gave up two more on the 4th run. At the lunch break, I was ~14 seconds behind. 

They changed up the course at lunch and I was the first car on grid after lunch. That's not ideal in the mud and I emphasized that by spinning off-course for a 10 second penalty. Otherwise, I was picking up speed, so I only gave up ~4 seconds on that run. And then I got my head out of my keester and ran a class-fastest time on the next run, followed by times that would have given me a win if I'd done them all day. 

I ended up 2nd, 14 seconds behind the winner. Oddly, that's the same gap as the last race, where I felt like finishing 2nd by 14 seconds was my best driving ever. The numbers never tell the whole story. Next week will be my first time at Panthera in West Virginia. I'm looking forward to trying a new venue and maybe nursing my ego a little bit. 

I haven't checked the camera yet, but I may have one video - hopefully the video of my off-course. I forgot to put the camera in before lunch, and then when I did put it in for the afternoon, I realized that I forgot to clear the SD card. Sigh. 

The car worked great - no issues at all. I spent 30 minutes at the car wash on the way home and then another hour cleaning at home to get some/most of the mud out from under the car. It's staying on the trailer and hooked up to the van for this coming weekend. I've never been ready for an event so early! 

And there you have it. How to throw away a run in one simple step! 
 

Motojunky said:

My only gripe with the exhaust was that the rear hanger was on the narrow side and smaller in diameter than the OEM. It looked likely to come out of the rubber isolators. I had some 3/8 stainless wire rope clamps that should make it just about impossible to come undone. 

I failed in this endeavor. My wire clamps are doing a great job, but the clamp to the right that isn't pictured has nothing but a rolled lip to keep the top side of the rubber isolator in place. Not surprisingly, it came off Sunday. 
 

I tapped the post for a 1/2" bolt and washer to act as a keeper for the top side. I think that'll do the trick.